Womad 2024: ‘The best music you’ve never heard’
Featuring artists from Poland to Palestine, the globe-spanning festival is back for another year
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Ever since its launch in the Somerset town of Shepton Mallet in 1982, Womad has had the same goal: to celebrate the rich musical traditions of nations across the globe. Founded by the solo artist and former Genesis frontman Peter Gabriel the festival has, over the course of its 42 years, hosted everyone from the late Pakistani qawwali master Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan to the virtuoso Senegalese singer Baaba Maal and Malian desert rock group Tinariwen.
With an increasingly dazzling range of genres and lyrical languages, Womad has grown from its small West Country beginnings to six global franchises, from Italy to New Zealand, and an annual weekender that will attract a 40,000-strong crowd to the grounds of Charlton Park stately home in Wiltshire between 25 and 28 July.
Director of programming Paula Henderson has worked for Womad since 1989 and describes the typical lineup as featuring “the best music you’ve never heard”.
“We’ve always kept our values and remained an outlier, bringing artists from Poland to West Africa, New Zealand and everywhere in between to a field in Wiltshire,” she says. “All the other festivals are going after the same acts while we’re looking elsewhere.”
Qawwali singer Faiz Ali Faiz, from Pakistan, has lost count of the number of times he has performed at Womad but, as his son and bandmate Nazar Abbas Faiz translates, it is always a unique experience. “Qawwali is universal, so it makes sense to play it on a stage where the crowd is so diverse,” he says. “It’s a place where artists share their cultures and meet audiences with an open heart.”
This year, Faiz and Nazar will be performing their Qawwali Flamenco project, blending intricate guitar work by the Spanish musician Chicuelo with soaring vocals and ancient Sufi poetry. “It’s my favourite project but it’s also very difficult to perform,” Nazar says. “It’s a great example of the Womad ethos, encouraging musicians to come together and collaborate with our different traditions.”
Despite its many triumphs, Womad has faced challenges in bringing performers to the UK. “A few years ago, it was becoming increasingly difficult to bring artists over, owing to all the red tape surrounding visas,” Henderson says. “There’s an assumption that everyone coming to the UK will never leave, which is ridiculous, and there are fewer and fewer people at the Home Office we can talk to about it.”
In 2018, the issue gained widespread attention as three acts from Mozambique, Tunisia and Niger booked to play were prevented from entering the country. As Womad’s figurehead, Gabriel stated that it was “alarming our UK festival would now have real problems bringing artists into this country”. He went on to add that many performers “no longer want to come to the UK because of the difficulty, cost and delays with visas, along with the new fear that they will not be welcomed”.
The booking team has, however, persisted and 2024’s lineup features headline performances from the Malian duo Amadou & Mariam, as well as a star-studded showcase of Ghanaian highlife music, Mongolian jazz singer Enji and the west African all-female group Nana Benz du Togo.
The programme also features a number of debut performers whose messages feel particularly vital today. Among them, the pioneering Palestinian hip-hop group DAM will be playing Womad for the first time, against the backdrop of the ongoing bombardment of Gaza.
“By performing live, we’re showing people that we Palestinians exist as human beings and we’re here with beautiful music to offer you,” says the group’s co-founder Tamer Nafar. “Most of the time on the news we are shown as victims or dehumanised, but onstage we can break that box they put us in.”
Performing a propulsive and lyrically dexterous brand of Arabic-language rap, Nafar is excited about the prospect of DAM’s music reaching a Womad audience, even though many will not understand a word he is saying.
“When the crowd doesn’t speak Arabic, we still see them connect with the music and start jumping around,” he says. “It’s all about encouraging people to be open to different cultures and allow the chaos of the show to connect and take over.”
With artists from Brazil to Palestine, Poland and Tanzania all slated to play, the range of music on offer at Womad 2024 reflects the broadening cultural landscape shared by fans and many contemporary rock, pop and electronic artists.
“Music is becoming so blended with influences that an event like Womad no longer feels like a niche,” says Henderson. “Our headliners Young Fathers play music full of west African rhythms, for instance. It’s all one contemporary sound.”
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